Do you know the tale of the mortals? Alioth asked softly. Or did you forget them just as you’ve forgotten what mortals themselves are supposed to mean?

“I remember,” Clara choked.

Let me remind you, because I don’t believe you do. Long ago, there were things called humans… believed themselves to be separate and above animals, they went on. The click of their hooves echoed from every direction. They thought they were top of the food chain with their putrid weapons and vile machines. They destroyed the world and began to kill off the animals faster than they could be born.

The gods were disgusted by such awful worshippers. They came down to these humans and gave them one decade to clean this world. The humans spit in their faces and said the divine have no place among them.

The gods waited for ten years. The world became shrouded in black smoke. Humans began to starve as all the animals died and the plants withered away to nothing. They begged for the gods to return, fix their world, but they didn’t return until a decade had come to pass.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When they revisited the world, humans were dying out. They begged the gods for mercy, but it would not come in the way they pleaded. The gods cleared the sky and filled it with white clouds. They destroyed the machines of humans. They cleaned the oil and waste discarded within the soil, and let it become rich once more. They breathed life back into every plant and animal, then turned to humans.

The gods took each one and combined it with that of an animal. Their limbs became contorted and their bodies writhed in agony as ears or horns or tails sprouted from their thin and sickly bodies. Only then, did the gods make them healthy. That is how the mortals came to be.

Alioth finally stepped forward, and Altair covered his mouth as bile rolled through his body.

The stench of death poured off of them in waves. He could taste centuries of blood in each breath. A crimson robe poured down what should have been their body, but it was impossible to tell.

It was just a silhouette. Tendrils of black floated around its head and tangled over its robe. Golden threads were draped from its bony shoulders and twisted down arms that didn’t quite fit. Three empty eyes rested inside their skull, perfect circles with dilated pupils and white irises.

It tilted its head.

That is how you came to be, Clara. You were never supposed to be one of us.